To the Spanish Republican Exiles

The Civil War ended with another civil war among Republicans in March 1939. This wound would take decades to heal. It also split the exiles into a number of factions, basically Communists, some Republicans, and Socialists who supported the prime minister Juan Negrín on the one hand, and Socialists who followed Indalecio Prieto or Largo Caballero, along with anarchists and Republicans on the other. After they supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact in August 1939, the Communists would left isolated. Basque and Catalan nationalists went their own way, although from time to time they did cooperate with other Spanish Republicans.

The formal rupture of Republican unity came when, following a proposal from Prieto, the Permanent Commission of the Cortes, which was then in Paris, dissolved the Negrín government on 27 July 1939. The constitutionality of this decision was dubious, and Negrín refused to accept it.  Days later, the Permanent Commission established the Committee to Assist Republican Exiles (JARE). This organization competed with the Spanish Republican Evacuation Service (SERE), which had been created in February 1939, while Negrín was still heading the government. SERE would repeatedly be accused of favouring his supporters and the Communists.

SERE had its headquarters in Paris and an office in Mexico City. It was constantly harassed by the French authorities and formally closed its doors in May 1940. Meanwhile, the bulk of the funds intended to support exiles had accidentally fallen into the hands of JARE and Prieto, who was living in Mexico. 

This money came from a cargo that was unloaded in Vera Cruz in March 1939 from the yacht Vita. The boat had been chartered by the Republic to save the funds of the Caja de Reparación, an agency that had been created during the Civil War to administer the property seized from supporters of the military uprising. The shipment sent to Mexico included jewels, coins, and foreign currencies. There is no agreement among historians on the value of the Vita’s cargo, and they have proposed amounts that run fr0m $40 million to an unlikely $300 million. They do agree, however, that the sale of the cargo brought in only between $8 million and $10 million.

That Prieto and his allies had control of the funds from the Vita exacerbated the tensions among the Republicans. The bitter accusations of favouritism, corruption, and sectarianism they exchanged are demonstrated in this manifesto issued by a group of jurists in New York in September 1940 denouncing Prieto’s group for “having appropriated the money for the exiles through JARE”.